SINYI Realty Estate, Taiwan's largest property brokerage, announced yesterday in Shanghai that it plans to expand its directly-owned outlets on the mainland to 700 within the next five years.

The Taipei-listed realtor, which entered the Chinese mainland market in 1993, has a current portfolio of 101 outlets including about two thirds directly operated and one third franchising stores in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Chongqing.

''The Chinese mainland is definitely one of the most important markets for Sinyi,'' said Chun-Chi Chou, chairman of Sinyi Realty. ''Our board of directors has just passed a proposal to make further investment, more than US$10 million, into the mainland market,'' he said.

The plan is still pending government approval, Chou said.

As part of its global plan, Sinyi will open its first outlet in Tokyo next year and increase its worldwide presence to 1,000 in five years.

Also yesterday, Sinyi announced its 20-million-yuan logo-changing program, part of its effort to go global.

In a few months, all Sinyi outlets across the country will use the newly-designed ''Sinyi Realty'' banner instead of the current ''Coldwell Banker.'' The US realtor brand formed a partnership with Sinyi in 1999 and authorized the Taiwan company as its legal representative for the China market.

The move comes as local property brokerage firms are having a hard time as transaction volumes of both new and second-hand houses dropped sharply over the past few months.

Latest statistics showed that the transaction volume of new commodity houses plunged nearly 50 percent to 5.259 million square meters in Shanghai during the first half of this year. That comes on top of transaction volume of used houses which dropped by about 25 percent in June, coupled with price declines in some parts of the city.

However, most industry experts said the current correction is not all bad as it may help eliminate small and unqualified players from the market.

''Big brokerage firms may also take advantage of this slack period to consolidate their strength and train their agents and get themselves better prepared for a recovery,'' said an industry veteran who declined to be identified.